Abstract
How is temporal information processed in high-level visual cortex? To address this question, we measured cortical responses with fMRI (N = 12) to time-varying stimuli across 3 experiments using stimuli that were either transient, sustained, or contained both transient and sustained stimulation and ranged in duration from 33ms to 20s. Then we implemented a novel temporal encoding model to test how different temporal channels contribute to responses in high-level visual cortex. Different than the standard linear model, which predicts responses directly from the stimulus, the encoding approach first predicts neural responses to the stimulus with fine temporal precision and then derives fMRI responses from these neural predictions. Results show that an encoding model not only explains responses to time varying stimuli in face- and body-selective regions, but also finds differential temporal processing across high-level visual cortex. That is, we discovered that temporal processing differs both across anatomical locations as well as across regions that process different domains. Specifically, face- and body-selective regions in lateral temporal cortex (LTC) are dominated by transient responses, but face- and body-selective regions in lateral occipital cortex (LOC) and ventral temporal cortex (VTC) illustrate both sustained and transient responses. Additionally, the contribution of transient channels in body-selective regions is higher than in neighboring face-selective regions. Together, these results suggest that domain-specific regions are organized in parallel processing streams with differential temporal characteristics and provide evidence that the human visual system contains a separate lateral processing stream that is attuned to changing aspects of the visual input.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2018